So, it is May – Mental Health Awareness Month, and I’m not motivated to write about mental health. Not mine, at least. Instead, I find myself drawn to write about parenting a son who has suffered severe migraines since he was…

Hubby hasn’t had to travel at all since we moved into the house. I was really hoping that he wouldn’t have to do it again. I get lonely and scared.

We found out that he has to travel this week and I have to be by myself for a couple of days. I’m having anxiety just thinking about it. I know I can do it though. I’m strong!

My moods have been semi stable. There has been some depression, but it’s not that bad. Yes I’m sad and want to crawl into bed and do absolutely nothing at all. I’m trying to work past it though.

I’ve started on the painting for my BFF I think it is turning out okay so far. It’s hard to judge when I’m depressed because I am my own worst critic but I hope it turns out wonderful as she is a wonderful person.

What Dreams May Come I love this image so! The first time I saw the 1998 film What Dreams May Come I didn’t connect with it although it starred some actors I adored including Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorra and Cuba Gooding Jr. Then, … Continue reading →

Earlier in the week, before Mother’s Day, I had a session with my therapist that concluded that I “have mad skills (cognitive and coping)” and an “insight that most (people) don’t have.” I was reminded of such great talent like Kay Redfield Jaminson, Vincent van Gogh, Jane Pauley, Georg Cantor, Dick Cavett, Patricia Cornwell, Ernest Hemingway, Florence Nightingale, Edgar Allen Poe, Jackson Pollack and Nina Simone. Yet, rather than appreciate the talent for honesty when years of tact has failed, I’m seen as heartlessly callous regardless of my generosity. It’s so much easier to dismiss my skills for cognitive thinking and poke fun at an illness of which I could not conjure.
Am I the only bipolar that is worthy of invisiblity? The relentless hard-work put into maintaining my own well being gone unnoticed? Is this my birthright to be damned to a lifetime of such a hideous despise?
Seeking a bright light beyond the dark forest is a treacherous lonely path to endeavor. Will the light ever open to a field of never-ending bliss? Am I the only woman to sit alone on holidays that were meant for me to cherish?

Beauty is found by relishing in the days of my youth. When naivety and ignorance of a viciously capricious world is placed far away from swimming pools, riding ocean waves,and the first snow sleigh ride down the street with the biggest hill was all that mattered. Desensitized to the helicopters flying over a foreign jungle. I can close my eyes and capture the beauty of cherry blossoms and dogwoods in first bloom. How I adore that innocence, admire the fearlessness, and envy the freedom of the little girl “that could”. What wealth she had before the clouds of depression came rolling overhead by adolescence. That has led her here. Alone. Secluded to her memories of days gone by. A silent giggle, a lonely tear shed. This is the woman I celebrate or curse… alone.

It is my opinion that for most, loneliness is seen as a sign of weakness but to a few, it is an admirable way to acknowledge what’s real. My example for this idea is obtaining a laceration. Some would convince themselves that it doesn’t hurt. “Buck up” or “it’s just a little cut”. When others would acknowledge that it’s not a cut but, a good sized laceration and yes, it hurts. It hurts a lot and it’s going to continue to be sore until the wound scars over leaving a numbness that will never repair itself.

Obviously, I am the one who feels the pain and acknowledges that the scar has left me with no feeling in that region ever again. A time that has left me with nothing but numbness. Honestly, I don’t know women like me. Who are damned to a life of numbness. Am I or am I not a value to society? I wonder.

I maybe laughed at evidenced by what Joseph F Newton describes “people are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.” What if, those bridges have been built, rebuilt, repaired, and rebuilt again. This is not an epiphany that I am unaware of such issues as victimhood, social isolation, or neglect. Is misery and self pity not allowed? Not even on Mother’s Day? When are you allowed to feel bitterness, resentment, or even guilt? Is lonilessness a victimhood for a bipolar? Or is it a captive effect? Again, I wonder.
Tomorrow is another day and perhaps I will once again accept the challenge of putting my cherished happiness back in the file and push forward. For today, I don’t feel like seeking new building materials for a better future. I don’t feel like being persistent to mustard the courage to be brave. And I definitely have no routine that rewards me to celebrate.

“Hope does not deny the present darkness, but it reminds us that dawn is coming” -Martin Luther King, Jr. Hope is an important aspect of everyone’s life, but even more so for those of us stricken with bipolar disorder. Buried under a mountain of covers, blinds drawn to hide the light, perhaps it’s difficult to see the ray of hope through the eyes of depression. Depression robs us of so many things but hope and our connection to the world are paramount. So how do you have hope when the world seems to be falling apart around you? When all you can manage is a trip to the bathroom? When you feel lost and frail with nothing to believe in? How do you feel hope then? Hope is a choice. It empowers you. It gives you a reason to go on—even when you think one doesn’t exist. There’s the hope that comes from inside and then there’s the hope that comes from others. Others can instill the sense of hope in you. They can give you hopeful words and remind you of what is good in your life. But the work of hope needs to come from within. It’s crucial to focus on the positive. I don’t mean for that to sound like a cliché. I mean it literally. Find something positive, anything. For me, it was the hope to lose weight. It was the hope to spend more time with my family. Hope can make all the difference when the road to recovery seems so long. Having bipolar disorder is like a psychological trauma. It produces emotional scars. Hope is the key emotion to rehabilitation from this disease. Find that spec of light and follow it. Where will it lead you? There’s hope in that. Seek help for your affliction. There’s hope in that. Hope is the power of possibility. Believe in yourself. There’s definitely hope in that.

I suppose it’s not so bad after some rest. Oh, if you can call waking up every two hours the whole night rest. And it wasn’t even my kid. I let her sleep with me because I just…felt like maybe I was being irrational and was too hard on her (even though I maintain she acts like a sociopathic brat). I grounded her for the week and I will stick to it, her behavior is unacceptable. I wonder, though, if my irritability is any more acceptable. Maybe I should be grounded, too. Except no playdates or going outside is a reward for me.

No, she slept the whole night. It was me who was up and down, getting a drink, smoking a cig. At three a.m. Voodoo came in to headbutt me awake and to fill the food dish. I do so love having claws dug into my boobs at that hour, it’s awesome. No sooner than I got back to sleep, I woke to Pantera trying to nurse on my neck. I could close the door to keep them out, but oh wait, I can’t because whoever broke into the house to steal my tv and laptop three years ago busted off the door that closes the bathroom and bedroom off so there’s just a curtain now.

No need to rain on my parade and blow up my floats, I’m doing it for myself just by thinking of my reality. Oddly a few weeks ago I was rock bottom depressed but still content. Now I feel like a piano wire about to snap and everything is pissing me off and stressing me out. Like it got worse instead of better and how is the doctor going to make this my fault rather than maybe face Latuda isn’t the wonder drug the reps make it out to be…Or maybe I doomed it by hearing all the bad experiences and somehow psychosomatically made it fail.

I have all this housework taunting me. I came close to getting caught up the other day but my mood just tanked. I am so far under now, it’s depressing in itself. Which makes me want to go beg the doc to get rid of this Latuda, which I think is making me so anxious I am irritable 24-7, and scream for some Effexor or Cymbalta. Sure, in high doses they make me manic. So make it a low dose and see me more than once a month to monitor me. Something’s got to fucking give here. It is far more torturous to feel okay for a couple of hours only to hit rock bottom for the next 20 hours every single day. It’s been like this for two years, so let’s try something different. Hell, give me amphetamines, give me magic shrooms, just help me, ffs. I can’t occupy this mind space much longer. Last night, I actually started with the suicidal “my existence is pointless” shit. This is not an improvement. And the whole “it takes weeks to see an improvement”while factual means fuck all if you completely lose your shit before it happens.

Part of me thinks I am being a whiner. Of course, this seed was planted by my father during one of his loving beratings in which I am somehow lesser than him because I’m smart in different ways and have different coping mechanisms than him. God forbid we should be individuals, one size must fit all and if it doesn’t, it’s your own fault.

I think what pisses me off the most is…People are allowed to have different shoe sizes. (Unless you’re a woman, in which case wearing a size 11 somehow makes you less feminine and gross and is all your fault.) But the logic is the same. A size ten foot will not go into a size six shoe. And even if you managed it, you’d be in agony not to mention crippled. So quit expecting me to put my size 11 foot into a size six shoe, for fuck’s sake. I’m doomed to fail from the word go, how is that remotely fair? Yeah, yeah, life’s not fair. But it should be a more even playing field. And if this god everyone has so much faith in were listening, he’d make it a more level playing field. Deal with the good and the bad, but give us all the necessary tools to cope. You can’t go giving all the sanity to some and none to others and sit back in judgment when everyone’s stumbling about wearing the wrong shoe size and not functioning properly.

I am so not in my right mind. Just get tired of feeling like I studied my ass off for the test but got the wrong study sheet so I failed the test. Prepare me properly so I can have a chance at succeeding.

I am in the final season/final episodes of Weeds now. I must say, I almost want to be shot in the head if it means my personality will become more pleasant and enlightened and positive. And selling weed probably wouldn’t suck any more than waiting tables. Well, maybe not drugs, cos my nerves couldn’t handle that stress plus not a big druggie…But if only I could find something unconventional in which I could work at my own pace, in my own disorganized way, and earn a living. I want that more than my next breath, to never have to justify my illness to anyone else simply because they can’t see it. It even gets to the point where you’re trying to please the doctor, something you’d never do with physical pain because tests and such would back up your story on being in agony. With mental illness, it’s just your word and I think shrinks are pretty jaded either to the negative or positive. They’ll doubt your every word and go along, or basically call you a liar and prescribe everything but what will help. So many fecking hoops to jump through.

I have like six bucks to my name. The car is on E. I owe the school money for her “technology and bubbleope” fee and if I don’t get it by the end of the month, they can hold her report card and avoid passing her to first grade. (Would have been nice to get that notice, oh, say, eight months ago,for fuck’s sake.) Almost out of cig supplies. About out of toilet paper. The cats will be out of food and litter by Friday. Why would anyone CHOOSE to struggle this way if the opposite were within such easy reach?

Not to mention my good friend “call me if you ever need anything” R-sole hasn’t so much as sent a text in four days yet saw me in traffic and waved and grinned. Yeah, fuck you, asshat. I’m his slave until wifey gets back, then he doesn’t give a rat’s ass if my kid and I are eating shoe rubber. WTF kind of friend is that? Sounds more like my family. Or am I just that far over the edge that I am distorting everything?

Draino. Live it, drink it, circle it. No wonder people become alcoholics and druggies. Trying to do shit the right way has gotten me nowhere. And those suicidal thoughts, which I rarely had prior to my brain damage..Such a drastic change in personality/thought tendencies is disturbing. I tell the doctor but it’s like…Meh, this $26.50 a pill stuff will fix everything because the drug rep says so and 40 out of a million people got better on it.

Ass trash clown shoeing fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

It’s weird. I feel this downtrodden undertow with every fiber of my being. It’s not affect, not drama. I feel it. My soul is blackened with it. Yet I look to my right and I see fuzzy little Castiel next to me and hear him purring and he looks at me with that lil pumpkin shaped head…And I melt. Yet it’s not the same as it once was. Because something is very broken in me, some part of the brain that feels positive things like love and joy and contentment. It’s just broken.

And I don’t think JB Weld or Gorilla Glue can fix it.

Please note that this is another in our series of guest blogs. I hope you will continue in your kindness and leave a comment for our guest bloggers. Donna’s blog is: Homemade Naturally

Incest Survivor

I will soon be 60 and would have to say I have had a good life. That said it has not been an easy life but then whose has been. I have had a better life than some and am thankful every day that I am here and living my life.

My childhood was one that included constant moving from one town to another. There was a lot of emotional and physical abuse (not the ordinary physical abuse of the times but the being thrown against walls and having your head banged against whatever was handy etc) . I never felt safe and I never told anyone, none of us kids did. We didn’t say anything when the incest started either. We were told we would all be killed if we did and we honestly believed it. When I was 15 I did tell my mother who told us she was leaving my father and getting a divorce. Nothing was ever said about that again and she never got a divorce. Why did I stay there? Well someone had to make sure the young ones didn’t have to deal with it. Like I could stop it, right. But that was what I thought at the time.

Then I left home at 17 and meet a young man who told me he loved me and wanted to marry me. Well how do you say no to someone who actually thinks you are lovable? We married and I learned love means more abuse of all kinds. We had 2 girls and when he started to hit them that was it. I was aware enough to know I did not want my girls to live that way. We separated and then divorced. I returned to school and got counselling for the three of us and slowly realized my own worth. I learned I did not make anyone do bad things to me as I was told all my life. It was not my fault I did not make them do it to me. It was a wonderful release to know it wasn’t me I WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE. I do not regret any of my life but sure if I had a choice I would choose a different family but I am who I am now because of all I have survived.

I am a survivor and continue to be one. Life isn’t easy but I have learned how to make it a good one and I have forgiven them and myself. I like me and I like the mom I am, because I learned what not to do from my own mother, father and ex-husband. My girls always tell me they want to be just like me and I guess I can’t get a better higher compliment than that.

My blog is Homemade Naturally and it started out as a way to get information and recipes that I made and researched on a blog. It evolved to more and is now stories, poems, crafts, food recipes and of course I still put out natural product recipes. I also make soap and candles and have added some of those recipes also. I like to provide info on ways to help our planet one baby step at a time. You will find ways to re-use, re-purpose and re-cycle. Hope you stop by and pick a recipe to try at home.

Lemon sugar foot or body scrub

I use these jars because they have a wide lid and that makes it easier to get the scrub out but you can use any type and use a spoon to dig it out

Lemon Sugar Scrub Supplies:

• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar; divided

• 1/4 cup coconut oil (almond oil will also work or vegetable oil or jojoba oil)

• 1 lemon (juiced) or 1 tbsp lemon juice concentrate

Whip coconut oil and add sugar and lemon. If you want to make a body wash then add around ½ cup of liquid homemade soap and you have a great wash.

You can make any kind of sugar or salt or sugar and salt scrubs here are some more ideas: You can use coffee grounds or egg shells or whatever you can think of to make these and they make great gifts by just adding a ribbon and a label.

Brown sugar citrus cinnamon scrub

1/3 cup of Brown sugar

3 Tbsp of coconut oil

10 drops of orange essential oils or zest from a real live Orange/tangerine/mandarin even lemon as long as it is citrusy

1 tsp cinnamon

So whip up your coconut oil for about 2 minutes then add brown sugar, orange and cinnamon. Place in jar and use as required.

Pink Himalayan Salt Scrub

Same as above only instead of brown sugar use Pretty pink Himalayan salt. I like to keep the citrus theme going but leave out the cinnamon.

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish — you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson

(scheduled post)

I’ve always been far too impatient about hitting the publish button around here. I think I generally blog far too often, with intermittent wide open spaces. Not many this year… Last October was quiet. Ahem. So there’s one benefit of scheduling posts; I don’t drive people nuts with rapid-fire blogging, and there are still posts appearing on the tongue tied days. I started to mark my posts as scheduled a few days ago; the reason for that is also the most beneficial of benefits – you won’t know when I wrote posts. No skullduggery there, however, it just means that I can weep, wail, whine and whinge, without worrying about the people who will worry about me. Still no skullduggery, I appreciate the worriers and warriors who care, but I’m useless at dealing with the concern, especially when I’m all fucked up and fragmented. I start feeling guilty about feeling shitty and then I start agonising over answering simple, kindly queries about my wellbeing.

Overthinking? Me? Hmmm… If you’re one of my bipolar friends you can wipe that snigger out of your larynx; not only do I know you do it too, I can smell the sizzling of grey matter from here. It’s like a bipolar brainbecue.

Bob Dylan – Sweetheart Like You (Infidels, the first freshly released Dylan album I owned, it was 1983. Not a great year for me. My mother loved Dylan a lot and so do I.)

Anonymity is a funny thing. I tend to assume it’s about hiding my name and face and suchlike, but that’s a superficial judgement. Personal data aside, to be truly anonymous, I’d have to avoid connecting with other people, which means avoiding interaction. I’d have to forego empathy (both giving and receiving). Compassion would decrease, loneliness would increase.

Fuck that.

I didn’t start off anonymously anyway, when I started blogging last August. I’d given the url to a few close friends already. Part of starting this blog was, and still is, to find/be found by people like you. You guys either have bipolar, or are understanding and lovely about it. I’d tried a forum beforehand; although it was invaluable in giving support and info then, it wasn’t deep enough. So I shifted here completely and you lot held my hand through the initial shock and horror of my diagnosis. You told me about your issues, your solutions and you told me about problems with no solutions, which makes it all easier to handle. I haven’t said it before, but I’ve crammed you into my remission toolkit, which I keep in a sturdy toolbox. Well of course I do.

Thank fuck for you.

R.E.M. – Make It All Okay (My favourite band since 1986, when the video for Stand on tv held me spellbound. An obsession was born. This song is from Around the Sun, which I bought in Exeter in 2004.)

In other circumstances, I’d be spilling my soul to a therapist, a priest, a family member, a close friend… Whoever I trusted and who had time for looong conversations or emails or whatever. As you know, I’m very fucking verbose; I’d probably need about six listeners. Sometimes I feel as though my mouth has been stitched shut; more often, I feel a strong need to talk. If I can’t puke up the words and be heard, I feel as though I’ve swallowed a tennis ball. Not sure how that’d be possible with my mouth stitched shut. So I blog; I’ve been doing it since the late 90s. This time around, I’m getting the psycheducation and therapy I can’t afford otherwise. It’s important.

Another aspect is that when I blog, I’m not writing in a structured way. I’m either organising my thoughts around whatever I’ve been researching, or I’m just chucking the bread rolls of confusion into the pond of rumination and reaction, waiting for the mallards of enlightenment to come and swallow the confusion and quack some nice, clear conclusions (what a ludicrous metaphor, man that was fun to write). Flannery O’Connor said all of that far more succinctly, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” ||source|| It works that way for me too, I frequently waffle my way to some semblance of clarity, it’s mah process, peeps.

Leonard Cohen – The Partisan (The first Leonard Cohen song I ever heard was Famous Blue Raincoat. My mother, nextofkin and I shared a whole lot of love for the man and his songs.)

And all of the preceding waffle is a long-winded way of explaining why I need to write and how it helps me. Because of all of that, allowing myself to feel inhibited is nonsense, it detracts from the benefits I get here. I just can’t bring myself to keep spewing the amount of misery that I generally do; I feel self indulgent and guilty about it. So I think that if I want/need some fast help and support, I’ll blog “live”, but otherwise I shall schedule. By the time I read it, emotions will have shifted in one direction or another and I will hopefully have gained some perspective and insight in the meantime.

Plus, anything I do to keep the old brain active, is a good thing.

When I write amusing stuff, it’s for my ego. When I write emotional stuff, it’s for my soul. The linkdumps appease the multitasking magpie of my mind (I am on fire with the mixed and ridiculous metaphors and similes today).

And I think I finally wrote my way to confusion instead of away from it.

Onwards.

Coldplay – Ink (There are three people inked into the skin of my left arm, the ink means the world to me and Coldplay meant the world to my mother. I like them too, but it’s an embarrassingly mainstream admission to make, so I usually blame it on the dog.)

Got a tattoo and the pain’s alright…

Rodriguez – Sandrevan Lullaby (I’d bought Coming in from Reality for my mother at some point, and we played it daily for the last few weeks of her life. Sixto Rodriguez is part of the South African psyche and my mother was a big fan.)